Authors Louise Krug & Dennis Etzel Jr. discuss memoir writing at Topeka Library

Authors Louise Krug and Dennis Etzel Jr. talk about memoir writing and share tips for crafting a well-written book?on Thursday, December 5 at 7 p.m. at Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library.??Following their conversation on memoir writing, Krug will read a selection from "How to Explain,"?her most recent memoir released in October 2024.?

Krug is the award-winning author of "How to Explain" and "Tilted: The Post Brain Surgery Journals." Her first book, "Louise: Amended," was one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Nonfiction Books of 2012. Krug has published essays in The Huffington Post, River Teeth, Juked, various anthologies and elsewhere. She lives in Topeka with her family.

Etzel teaches English at Washburn University and has written several books. "My Secret Wars of 1984" was selected by The Kansas City Star as a Best Poetry Book of 2015. "Fast-Food Sonnets" is a 2017 Kansas Notables Book and "This Removed Utopia" was published as part of the Kaw Valley Poetry Series. Etzel's work has appeared in?Denver Quarterly, Indiana Review, BlazeVOX, Fact-Simile, 1913: a journal of poetic forms, 3:AM, Tarpaulin Sky, DIAGRAM, and others. Etzel is the recipient of a 2017 Troy Scroggins Award and the 2017 Topeka ARTSConnect Arty Award in Literary Arts.

In the memoir "How to Explain," Krug grapples with the misgivings and longings inherent in who we truly are instead of who we're supposed to be. With a wry wit, acute eye, and refreshing honesty, she writes about how to look at social media without hating herself, how to stop volunteering, and how to navigate seeing double in a singular world. Along the way, she explores how to talk to her personal trainer who thinks she is going to hell, what kind of exercise inspires the least amount of self-loathing and how to explain her differences to her kids' friends. She captures the humor, surprise, and strange puzzle pieces that come together in being an adult human on her own terms.